


Obviously

by notcoolenoughtobehere



Series: Frazel for Days [3]
Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Cliche, College!Frank, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Frazel representation, Hazel's powers, I Love You, New Rome, OOC everyone, Post-The Blood of Olympus, Praetor Frank, Suupeerrr Cliche, The path to get this ship every kind of fanfiction continues, Tired Frank, literally only fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcoolenoughtobehere/pseuds/notcoolenoughtobehere
Summary: A thought appears so suddenly and with such simple clarity that Hazel's heart jumps a beat.I love you.Well, obviously.Hazel says "I love you."After a few tries.





	Obviously

Hazel realizes it when she's over at Frank's apartment late one night, helping him study for a reptilian biology test he had the next week. She sits on his bed and he reclines on his desk chair. He stares at her with the intensity of a man trying desperately to stay awake, and she laughs as he walks himself verbally through remembering vocabulary words.

She tucks the **carapace** index card behind the pile and shows Frank the next one. When he doesn't immediately begin mumbling some outrageous memory cue, Hazel lowers the card and peers at him.

He is sleeping, his body slumping over the back of his chair, his neck stretching at an unnatural, uncomfortable angle. Hazel smiles. A trace of a younger, babyfaced Frank appears when Frank sleeps. His expression becomes free of the subtle stress that has haunted his brow for days and his mouth hangs slightly ajar to make way for his heavy breathing. His eyes are painted with light purple bags.

Hazel puts the pile of index cards on the table and stands up. They are almost through the pile, anyway, so she's relatively sure that Frank wouldn't mind if she let him sleep. Frank is tired enough that he doesn't wake up when Hazel, grunting slightly under his weight, shifts him carefully from his chair to his bed. He squints through his blurry eyes before allowing Hazel to tip him over so his head lies on his pillow. He mumbles a small protest about walking Hazel back to the Fifth Cohort barracks combined with an incoherent definition of a trematode. 

Hazel brings the blankets around him as much as possible and he sinks into them. As his breathing steadies into a regular rise and fall of his chest, a thought appears so suddenly with such simple clarity that Hazel's heart jumps a beat.

_I love you._

Hazel's face flushes and she runs a hand through her hair nervously, taking a step away from Frank's bed to the door. She doesn't notice Frank's fingers, gently interlaced with hers, until a small tug stops her as she turns to leave her sudden realization.

Frank is still sleeping. Hazel disentangles their hands quietly and places his gently on the bed before walking the short distance out of New Rome and back to her cohort. She's caught between a strange sort of giddy excitement and hesitant surprise.

Hazel Levesque, in love. 

\--

Hazel recalls her new awareness upon seeing Frank at breakfast the next morning. She swallows her strange mutant butterflies and sits across him like she would any other day. Her plate fills with bacon and eggs, but she finds it difficult to concentrate on eating when these three silly, obvious words are hanging on her tongue.

Frank is talking with Dakota about Praetor things, something about allowances for of-age demigods and legacies in New Rome. Frank's hand reaches out and holds Hazel's under the table, his thumb tracing absent patterns across her knuckles. He stutters slightly in surprise at something Dakota says and his clumsy hand sends some orange juice sloshing out of his goblet and Hazel feels the same strange rush she felt the night before. 

_I love you._

Hazel has known Frank for years, and _of course_ she loves him. It's been running under their relationship for so long that it shouldn't feel like a big deal to point it out.

But it does. The words get caught in her throat as she watches Frank scoop up the last of his cereal and stand up.

"Early class today, and a Praetor meeting right after," Frank says, looking at Hazel, "but we'll meet then?"

His voice catches in a strange way and Hazel imagines Frank tagging a _Love you_ at the end of his sentence.

"Um. Hazel. You okay?" Frank's voice is soft, meant only for her. He leans over the table, worry creasing his forehead and Hazel wants to kiss him straight on the lips and tell him then and there. She tips forward and presses a kiss to his cheekbone.

"Yes. See you at the lake."

_See you at the lake. Love you._

\--

Two weeks later, Hazel and Frank sit together on the grass of New Rome, celebrating the end of finals. 

When Frank laughed so hard that he tripped over the air and tried to catch himself on Hazel's arm, sending them both toppling in a flustered, giggling pile, the words got stuck on her lips. When Frank continued their lesson on mythomagic during a study break and Frank compared Hephaestus's overdramatic character illustration with Leo, Hazel thought that the words would spill out among her laughter seamlessly, but instead the laughter drowned them. Even when Frank fell asleep in the middle of the day at the mess hall, his head propped on his hand, Hazel's voice died in her lungs. She had looked at him and tried to weave the words in the air, but instead she had just kissed his hairline and smiled as he blinked himself awake. 

Hazel's head rests on Frank shoulder as they look over the marble structures on Temple Hill. And Frank isn't doing anything but just _existing_ next to her, and Hazel wants to have already said them. She wants to be the future version of herself that has already told Frank, because this was stupid and ridiculous and way, way harder than it should be. But Hazel has never really been in love before, not like she loves Frank, and the words feel so powerful she's afraid they'll drag her down unless she shares the weight with him. 

Hazel sees something shine in the grass from the corner of her eye. It's a misshapen jewel about the size of her pinkie. She grabs it and slips it into her pocket as quickly as she can.

"Hey, Hazel." Frank murmurs before reaching out, picking something up next to him. He shifts his body so they are facing each other and opens his hand to reveal a large, rough diamond resting in his palm.

"You okay? You just. Seem a little nervous." Frank looks from Hazel's face to the rock.

"Oh, that." Hazel grabs the diamond and shoves it in her pocket. "Just a little restless, I guess." 

\--

The sun bleeds the darkness of the night into a pale purple. Hazel waits in New Rome at the entrance to Senate House, where she knew Frank would be soon enough for a cohorts representatives meeting. 

She's prepared to look him straight in the eyes and tell him no matter what - even if the world falls out around their ears. Hazel feels strangely nervous as Frank approaches and she realizes with wide eyes that she is afraid. They've been together for so long - maybe Frank hasn't said anything about love because that's not how he feels?

He's wearing a red toga over his clothes that he's lifted slightly at the feet to avoid tripping. His face morphs in surprise as he sees Hazel and he smiles, confused.

"Uhm, Hazel. Hi." Frank moves forward like he's going to kiss her, and, okay, Hazel, this is it, it's now or never. She moves away from him, a defiant fire in her eyes, ignoring the small concern that lights in Frank's face. She reminds herself that she has saved the world before and this is at least one step down on the bravery level.

"Frank," she begins at the same time that Frank says, "What are w-"

"I love you."

For a moment, Hazel wonders if she actually did say it out loud. Frank stands still, his breath the only sound Hazel could hear alongside the words that echo deftly in her ears. Hazel can't read all of the emotions on his face - surprise? Shock? Happiness? 

Frank leaps forward and kisses her.

And suddenly all of the "I love you"s that Hazel didn't say come pouring out.

"I love you, I love you, I love mmh-!"

Frank kisses her again, and kisses her cheek, and her forehead, and her nose and her temple and her lips and Hazel is laughing in relief as she kisses him back.

"Oh, my gods, Hazel! I thought you were going to break up with me, or - "

She stretches on her tiptoes and stops his sentence in its tracks.

"We-well, I mean, I love you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> This was a good time.  
> I think I'll come back to this because it feels like they all started to get a lil OOC. This world needs more fanfiction for these two, though I, an humble and under qualified intern, tries to fulfill all of the cliches they deserve (see above).


End file.
